Niki Duffy, a community worker from Hartlepool (Cleveland, UK), was completely shocked to find that cyber-thieves, running a global online scam, compromised the e-mail account she operated.

The employee first discovered the hack when she entered her password like usual, but came to know that it was a different one.

Moreover, anxious friends called on her saying that they got a suspicious e-mail from her e-mail account. This made Niki realize that she had been victimized with an e-mail fraud.

The particular e-mail was the creation of hackers who managed to access Niki's security credentials, following which they spammed messages from her account. The e-mail stated that Niki was stuck while in Spain and therefore urgently required to borrow 1,500 pounds.

While reaching all the contacts on Niki's address book, the suspicious e-mail claimed that her purse was lost in Madrid (Spain); therefore, to clear her hotel bill and return journey, she required some money.

Niki, working as a 'Project Manager' at Owton Fens Residents Association, Hartlepool, said that she felt like experiencing a nightmare. She was also distressed at the idea that people might imagine her trying to cheat them off their money, Niki added, as reported by hartlepoolmail.co.uk during the first week of April 2010.

Cyber-criminals are extremely cunning beings. While users may not succeed in stopping scam attacks from targeting them, they can at the minimum prevent themselves from being victimized.

Therefore, some security measures must be adopted. Firstly, the e-mail containing grammatical mistakes and incorrect spellings is an indication to users that it's a scam message which needs to be deleted immediately.

Secondly, users must install a locking tool in their mailbox so that e-mail theft can be prevented. Thirdly, users should not expose their credit card and Social Security numbers to anyone randomly. If any business asks for the numbers for check-cashing reasons, it should be asked for a card for check-cashing instead.

Fourthly, users must memorize their PINs and password so that there is no need to penning them down. Also, while entering the PIN, users must ensure that nobody else is watching it. Finally, Internet security software must be deployed and kept patched and up-to-date.

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